United Kingdom UNITED KINGDOM 2021 - James Newman - Embers

[escYOUnited]

Sometimes I know my fire burns low
But as long as you're with me I'll never get cold
'Til day and night, 'til darkness and light
I never worry when you're by my side

Oh, feelings change and seasons fade
But nothing will burn us out
Nothing can stop us now

Out of the embers
You and I are gonna light up the room (Yeah, you and I gonna light up the room)
Out of the embers
There's a fire burning for you (Yeah, there's a fire burning for you)
I feel the heat here
There's still a chance for us
Down herе in the ashes, yeah, thеre's something growing
Out of the embers
You and I are gonna light up the room (Yeah, you and I gonna light)

Light up the room
Light up the room

You and me forever, we're free
We're cool under pressure, and that's all we need
So take my hand, and forget the past
We're in this together, there's no looking back

Oh, feelings change and seasons fade
But nothing will burn us out
Nothing can stop us now

Out of the embers
You and I are gonna light up the room (Yeah, you and I gonna light up the room)
Out of the embers
There's a fire burning for you (Yeah, there's a fire burning for you)
I feel the heat here
There's still a chance for us
Down here in the ashes, yeah, there's something growing
Out of the embers
You and I are gonna light up the room (Yeah, you and I gonna light)

Light up the room

Out of the embers
You and I are gonna light up the room (Yeah, you and I gonna light up the room)
Out of the embers
You and I are gonna light up the room (Yeah, you and I gonna light up the room)​

 

[Ianp16]

Blaming tories is insane and I would never vote tories until I die.

 

[Leydan]

Blaming tories is insane and I would never vote tories until I die.

Especially when Liz Truss, a top tory cabinet minister blames the BBC for it saying there needs to be more competition and changes, and that it wasn't down to politics. :'D

 

[MopManMoss]

Our first nul point was under Blair THANKS LABOUR

To be fair I have seriously seen people online still somehow blame Jemini's trainwreck on the Iraq War somehow, terry wogan really has damaged this countries perception of Eurovision unfortunately

 

[MopManMoss]

Seriously though how the hell do people blame our politics? How can you say that when Azerbaijan, Israel and Russia do frequently well

 

[Ianp16]

Israel doing well this year is the perfect example of how blaming politics is stupid. A country that is murdering children can somehow get people in europe to call a number and vote for them, ALL IN THE SAME WEEK!

 

[Lona]

Objectively the UK had the least liked song by the public. Quoting a post from another thread:

Meant to post this here:

Here are all the finalists ranked by their average televoting rank to get a better look at how good/bad countries really did:

1 (3,1)
2 (4,3)
3 (4,7)
4 (5,7)
5 (6,8)
6 (7,3)
7 (7,9)
8 (9,4)
9 (10,9)
10 (11,3)

11 (11,5)
12 (12,7)
13 (13,5)
14 (13,8)
15 (14)
16 (14,7)
17 (15,2)
18 (16,7)
19 (17,1)
20 (17,3)
21 (17,9)
22 (18,3)
23 (19,4)
24 (22,9)
25 (23,2)
26 (23,4)

I lowkey wish that this was the actual result haha.

 

[Loindici]

all countries at the top (except Italy) have had bad results

 

[Loindici]

I hope the British audience will start discussing how to actually get Eurovision 'right' and BBC really starting to pay attention to what the British fans want, after the big fat null. Maybe audiences were starting to soften up since James wasn't alone in the 0 televote point chain and (aside of Germany) none of Netherlands, Spain, nor UK have entries that are generally repulsive -- they are good and radio-friendly enough, with considerably good lyrics and a good production.

Something as important is a matter of getting people hyped about the entry. Especially for the pre-qualifiers, there seems to be an unwritten rule: If you're hyped, prepare for a top 10. If you're not, prepare for a bottom 5. So, get people talking, BBC. Do a Welsh song, or get an interesting artist.

 

[Leydan]

Actually one of my favourite Italian entries. :'D

Also a side note, I still can't believe they've kept these 2014 up with such horrendous audio quality. It's trying to listen to them through a wall.

 

[Loindici]

Actually one of my favourite Italian entries. :'D

Also a side note, I still can't believe they've kept these 2014 up with such horrendous audio quality. It's trying to listen to them through a wall.

Even the 2010 videos are still there IIRC, and somehow with a better audio quality as example this one:

 

[seagull]

I think the BBC does care it's just that they have an incredibly hard time figuring out how to send a good song that also has a British cultural stamp to it, something that makes it stand out in a good way and that is yet current and fresh.

The top 5 songs in the final all had something that connected them to their country's music culture, while the UK's song was just a bit generic. Sweden's music industry/scene is really close to the UK one and yet it got 21st place in Sweden's televote.

Question, what IS the "British cultural stamp"? Is there such a thing anymore? Seriously. Almost all of the other countries are built around one major ethnic group with a sprinkling of minorities, we are a union of nominally equal nationalities who used to spend centuries hurting each other than then decided we'd prefer to spend centuries being passive-aggressive towards each other instead. We know what Italians are, we know what the French are, we know what Greece is, the Israelis use language, religion, and shared trauma to bind them into a whole. Other than the Union itself, the Monarchy, the NHS, and the English language (which isn't indigenous right across the islands) what does the UK actually share? It's very difficult to have a clear "brand" if we have NO clue who we are anymore and that's before we even touch politics...

I highly doubt the English, who form the clear majority of people in the country (2019 estimate, 56.2 million out of 67.8 million), would be cool being represented by a song in a language they don't understand. We are not Ukraine 2016. I checked Wikipedia and there are approximately 883,600 speakers of Welsh and a mere 87,000 fluent speakers of Scots Gaelic in a Scottish population estimated as 5.4 million. To say nothing of the fact that Cornish, Manx, and Norn are functionally extinct, Gaelige is best left with Northern Ireland and alone, and Scots and Ulster-Scots are rarely spoken in the formal sense rather than a weird sort of slang that sometimes can come across badly and I come from one of those Scots-speaking areas (I have had to translate the movie Trainspotting for people, and I don't speak the Leith dialect). English became the default language for a reason, the other languages have been deliberately decimated. If you are going to go there though, Julie Fowlis (queen of Gaelic music and she of the Pixar movie Brave fame) would be worth consulting and Gwenno Saunders (Welsh and Cornish singer) would also be worth having a word with, at least to find credible people to take a stab at it, these guys know EVERYONE in that world. Going full English-language Folky is fine too, but a language that isn't English would be SO unexpected and probably help cover up any dodgy lyrics 'cos no one outside of Ireland would know...

I find it fascinating that Liz Truss, who is not screamingly ideological compared to some in her party, just straightforwardly Conservative, was dead on, the entry wasn't competitive enough and there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the BBC chooses its entries and that hasn't changed in 20 years, give or take about 5 exceptions (2003, 2009, 2011, 2014, 2017). She's no fool, you don't get to be in Cabinet, no matter what your political beliefs, if you are. If the same thing keeps happening, common sense says there's a trend and the common denominator is the BBC. Taking the creation of the entry from the broadcaster and handing it to someone else, be it BMG or whoever, isn't a bad idea given how poorly the BBC has chosen in recent years (especially under the previous Head of Delegation).

A hybrid arrangement is possible using the UK's very successful turnaround in the Olympics as a model (we're a population of 67 million people who came 2nd in the Medals Table at the Rio Games in 2016, better than China), i.e. other people do all the work and the BBC just gets to broadcast the results. Let's say that the Department of Culture, Media, Sport and Digital decide they are done with being bitchslapped every year, and decide to fund a national competition to find an entry: different record labels/media groups then submit entries which the BBC is obliged to broadcast but does not have input into the content of, which has been narrowed down by a shortlisting panel sort of like a Booker Prize judging panel composed of working producers, songwriters, critics, DJs and a smattering of recent competitors who actually know what it's like now (SuRie would make for a useful contributor here if she didn't fancy going again) inspired by the Melfest panel. After holding a National Final composed of maybe the best 12 entries, the winning team is then funded directly to put together an entry without interference from the BBC. The BBC simply signs the entry forms as the entry team's EBU member representative and pays up their extra Big 5 money-the BBC get their guaranteed ratings (imagine hosting BBC, imagine hosting) and we hopefully get a decent entry. This keeps clear blue sky between the BBC and the entry in practice, as well as distancing the entry from the Big 5 status so we can open up discussions about the viability of this going forward. Hopefully, this means there's a credibility built-in because the BBC hasn't touched it, it's just the medium over which the entry is transmitted, and the prospects of battle-testing the UK in the Semis are reasonable.

You Decide became a shit-show. Best case scenario, we get a Melodi Grand Prix which is presumably what they were going for when they decided to proceed with You Decide in the first place, it just didn't work out that way because we ended up with songwriting camps and Swedish knock-offs. The rules would have to be written in such a way to actively prevent that sort of thing from happening again because quite frankly, I have NO intentions of sitting through another You Decide 2019.

 

[seagull]

Our first nul point was under Blair THANKS LABOUR

To be fair I have seriously seen people online still somehow blame Jemini's trainwreck on the Iraq War somehow, terry wogan really has damaged this countries perception of Eurovision unfortunately

I do not like to speak ill of a dead man, but he should have been removed years before he did. He should have been talked into ending it in 1998 after he'd hosted and handled the selection vehicle, go out on a high because the BBC probably had no intention of pushing on for a 6th win (even though they were only 6 points behind 'Diva'), so why make him sit through failure?

It was an okay entry by the weak standards of the early 2000s Contest which was destroyed by a bad live performance that depressed me even at the time. What really bothers me was the beige effort they decided in their infinite wisdom to follow it up with. James Fox seems like a nice enough guy, but realistically, Precious in 1999 was the beginning of the end and naively at the time, I, spoiled by 3 years and 1 win and 1 second place, thought it was just a blip. We would KILL to come 20th now, never-mind 11th! Remember when Gina G coming 7th was a catastrophe? Happy days indeed!

 

[musicfan]

Joe and Jake were great in a weak year, and gave a good performance too. The BBC don't bother with money for staging and haven't for many years but they get the audience figures they want and are happy with that.

I think the Eurovision fan bubble everywhere is a lot more political than anyone else. You get endless analysis of jury votes and examination of political issues. Just in the Moldovan thread someone was talking about the influence of the EU and Russia,(the poster being pro-EU) and questioning whether Moldova should exist.

 

[Nicfedy]

I was not seriously blaming the Tories for this but someone else mentioned how successful Uk were during their regime in the 1980-90s. So just to set the record straight, the Poster omitted successes in 1997 and 1998, which were obviously due to good Popular entries.

 

[Iker]

Joe and Jake were great in a weak year, and gave a good performance too. The BBC don't bother with money for staging and haven't for many years but they get the audience figures they want and are happy with that.

I think the Eurovision fan bubble everywhere is a lot more political than anyone else. You get endless analysis of jury votes and examination of political issues. Just in the Moldovan thread someone was talking about the influence of the EU and Russia,(the poster being pro-EU) and questioning whether Moldova should exist.

Since when is 2016 considered a weak Eurovision year?! May I remind you that glorious with Iveta Mukhuchyan (LoveWave) finished only 7th that year. My beloved 'Heartbeat' only 15th and it was a very cool, catchy track nicely presented on stage.

Jake & Joe were nice but not great. The stage performance was almost as lame as this year. Maybe only great for lousy British standards this century.

 

[MooseShoes]

Don't want to turn this into a discussion on politics but I'm not letting this slide...

Liz Truss... She's no fool, you don't get to be in Cabinet, no matter what your political beliefs, if you are.

 

[Lance Esgard]

Joe and Jake were great in a weak year, and gave a good performance too.

I found the song itself rather catchy (and I really liked Joe) but the staging did it no favours and I think it was still too produced and middle-of-the-road to really be a vote grabber.

 

[musicfan]

Since when is 2016 considered a weak Eurovision year?! May I remind you that glorious with Iveta Mukhuchyan (LoveWave) finished only 7th that year. My beloved 'Heartbeat' only 15th and it was a very cool, catchy track nicely presentedon stage.

Jake & Joe were nice but not great. Maybe only great for lousy British standards this century.

Heartbeat feels like the singer is over-emoting and the hook isn't really that good.

LoveWave is decent, though it's different and towards pop-rock. The strange pause and rising scale before the main body of the song is my criticism of it, it feels a bit gimmicky. It didn't need that.

 

[ag89]

But for Italy this was an exception. It's funny they failed once they selected their act internally.

 

[abenteuer]

Such a shame about this one -- the song was awesome but the performance just sucked.